Hey there 👋
Here are some things to check for to ensure that your Appointments availability is set as intended.
1. If you have staff, review your Staff Availability and Hours
- Make sure you and your staff's hours are enabled for the days and times you are receiving an error.
- Check if your staff members have Custom Availability set up. Custom Availability will override business and staff hours for one-off changes to schedules. This setting can be found in the Calendar tab of your your Appointments dashboard.
2. Review your Staff Calendar for Appointments or Personal Events
- Check if the staff member has an existing appointment or personal event blocking that time slot. (Events being imported from a synced Google Calendar can also block availability and must be removed from the Google Calendar to make the slot available again).
- If a personal event was created from the Appointments calendar, unchecking the Block Time box within the event details will make this slot available for online booking.
3. Check Service Settings for Blocked Time
Check if the appointment prior to the time slot in question has had extra block time added to it. Block time is enabled in the service settings, and can be disabled on a per-appointment basis from the appointment details.
Any block time enabled for a service is added to the service duration. For example, a 1 hour service with 10 minutes of block time creates a 70 minute slot.
4. Check Your Online Scheduling Preferences and Scheduling Policy
Online scheduling settings determine which time slots are displayed as available and when they can be selected. Head to the Settings tab of your Appointments dashboard to check:
- Appointments are scheduled:
- According to service duration: splits your availability into time slots that match the duration of the service. For example, 20 minute services will split your available time into 20-minute slots.
- On the quarter hour: displays available slots on the quarter hour. For example: 3:00, 3:15, 3:30, 3:45.
- On the half hour: displays available slots on the half hour. For example: 3:00, 3:30, 4:00.
- On the hour: displays available slots at the top of the hour. For example: 3:00, 4:00, 5:00.
- Appointments must be made in advance: This setting asks that clients book a minimum amount of time in advance, from one hour to one week. If appointments must be made 1 day in advance, the client must book at least 24 hours before the start of the appointment.
- Appointments can’t be scheduled farther out than: This setting prevents customers from booking too far in advance, which comes in handy if you don’t know what your schedule will look like a few weeks/months out. For example, clients can only request an appointment within a week of the service date and time.
- Fake-It filter: The Fake-It filter arbitrarily removes a percentage of available slots from the online booking site. If this filter is enabled, see if turning the filter off opens up the time slot in question.
- Held Time Slots: When an available time slot in your online booking calendar is selected, Square holds that slot for 15 minutes to ensure the client has time to complete the booking. If the person who selected the time slot doesn’t finish booking in 15 minutes, the slot is once again made available to others.
It is definitely possible for a client to book multiple services. You can enable your online booking site to support this from your dashboard’s Business Settings.
Clients will only be able to select a combination of services that a single staff member can provide.
Hopefully this gets everything resolved and back to normal. Definitely post here to share any tips that especially worked for you -or- if you have any additional questions.
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